Tizzy

3 comments on this post.

October 29th, 2010 at 8:32 pm

As a self-described “armchair linguist” (much to my wife’s consternation, since she is going to school for the real thing!) I would have guessed wildly that “tizzy” was a corruption of “dizzy” – especially in light of the definition of “characterized by impulsive haste” which has fallen somewhat into disuse. Also consider that “dizzying”, rather than literally indicating “something which makes one feel dizzy”, suggests “something bewildering”, which is also not that far off.

October 29th, 2010 at 8:34 pm

In fact, backing up to another slightly archaic slang usage, I find “scatterbrained or silly” also very suggestive of the word…

Shonna:

September 20th, 2014 at 1:59 am

My twins’ voice dialect coach had them playing with a British accent today. We are Canadians. He had them say “It is” and then “It isn’t”, back and forth, quickly. T’is! T’isn’t! T’is! T’isn’t!
When they did it back and forth, it was really dizzying, and he said he believes that in a “Tizzy” came from some such debate!
Good story, if nothing else!

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